Amped: A Kid Sensation Companion Novel Read Online Free PDF

hadn’t had contact with in decades. It made me wonder what my own mother had been like. Was she beautiful? Was she smart? Had she loved me?
    Of course, it wasn’t the first time that I’d had these thoughts. In fact, these were questions that had a tendency to pop up on a regular basis – usually around my birthday, when I’d find myself spending more and more time dwelling on where I came from, who my parents were, and so on.
    I’d asked those questions innumerable times over the years (almost from the time I could speak), but none of the Alpha League members had ever given me what could be deemed a satisfactory answer. Their responses, I realized as I got older, were evasive more than anything else. In short, I’d rarely gotten any worthwhile information about the subject from any of my guardians. Well, that was going to change
now
.
    *****
    Esper came home some time after midnight. I was asleep when she came in, but woke up to the sound of a clattering from the kitchen. Reaching out, I could sense that it was her from her bioelectric field. (I could not only sense when people were around that way, but also identify them.) I scrambled out of bed and went downstairs. I walked into the kitchen just as Esper was placing a bowl of leftover lasagna in the microwave. She looked tired; whatever the mission was she’d been on, it had clearly drained her.
    “Sorry, if I woke you,” she said as she set the timer for one minute. “I was looking for a quick snack and dropped a bowl. Luckily, it didn’t break.”
    “That’s okay,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you anyway.”
    Esper raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What about?”
    “I wanted to ask again about how the League found me. What you know about my background.”
    A distasteful look took root on Esper’s face as she glanced towards the calendar that hung on the refrigerator. I knew what she was thinking:
Is it that time of year again? Her birthday?
    Satisfied that she hadn’t lost track of time, she turned back to me. “Why are you asking this?”
    “The same reason I always ask – because I want to know.”
    Esper made a sound of exasperation. “And it’s the same answer as always: the League found you under some rubble, in an area where a group of supervillains had set off some weird new weapon. They used it to kill a bunch of people – including, presumably, your parents – before we were able to stop them. You were lucky to survive, and the League took you in.”
    “But why me?”
    Esper frowned. “What do you mean?”
    “Well, the Alpha League has saved thousands of orphans of all ages over the years. Why did you guys decide to adopt
me
when you’d never done anything like that before?”
    Esper simply stared at me for a moment. This was roughly the point where the conversation would typically get shut down, and she did not disappoint.
    “Why is this so important to you? Isn’t it enough that you have a home and people who love and care about you? Millions of kids would kill for that.”
    “Yeah, and most of those kids probably have some idea of who they are…where they came from. I don’t even know when my real birthday is! I just have some random date picked based on how old you guys think I was when you found me!”
    “This isn’t stuff you need to worry about right now. Plus, your records were sealed when the League became your guardians. You’ll be able to get access to that stuff when you reach the age of majority.”
    “Ugh!” I howled in frustration. “You talk like there’s some giant ‘On/Off’ switch on my back that you’ll just be able to flip when I’m eighteen and suddenly I’ll be mature and able to handle things. Well, I’m sorry to tell you, it doesn’t work that way. Plus, what is there to unseal? Nobody knows anything about me anyway.”
    Esper took a moment to massage her temples. “You asked why you – why’d we take you in. Fine, I’ll tell you.” She looked up at me. “Basically, the League needed some